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Well the children wanted to do these valentines again, so we went for it. This year, Henry's said "I've taken a licking to you!" 
Kate's going through a major "Brady Bunch" phase and wanted to have her hair done like Marsha. The other day she asked me, "Why would Cindy give away Marsha's diary?!?!?!?" Oy. 
And Mr. Cheesy pants is finally starting to ham it up for the camera!  

Hope you had a great Valentine's Day!     

XOXO

We are working on Valentines today and can't stop looking at this outtake. I had a really, really great meeting this morning with the entire team that is working with Charlie at his school. Soon he'll change from a 1/2 day program to a full day. He's also changing classrooms so he'll be getting one-on-one services everyday. These are really good changes all around and I'm feeling extremely grateful and hopeful for this little nugget.

XOXO

I have a bit of a Wednesday ritual. After I drop Henry off at school, I drive to the next town and drop off Kate & Charlie. I have exactly 2 hours & 20 minutes twice a week all to myself. It's pretty heavenly. Its a 20 minute drive  to my nearest Salvation Army which has a "family day" sale every Wednesday where all clothes & shoes are 1/2 off.  They have a pretty amazing selection of wool sweaters so I spend a majority of my time rummaging through those. Today I decided not to hit Sally's (as the locals call it) and instead start cutting up all those sweaters I've felted. It feels good to be making things again even if it's just something small. The mantle was so bare after Christmas came down that is just needed a little something and I think this is just the thing. On a side note, that sculpted lady in the center was made by one of Chris' friends and given to us for our wedding present nearly 15 years ago. It's one of my all time favorite things. 
I made a Valentine banner too and cut out entirely too many circles, so I've put the extra garlands in the shop. I have just enough materials to make 3 of each, if you are interested. Hope you are staying warm. It was a balmy 10 degrees here today. It's soup and bread for dinner tonight (bread that's been trying to rise for hours!)

XOXO 

Yesterday the children and I whipped out our dollar store paper doilies and decided to make some decorations for the house. Thought you might want to make some with your kids, too so I'm giving you an official tute!
Start out with 3 sizes of doilies. Ours were $1 per package with varying amounts of doilies in each. Place one of each sized doily on top of eachother so that the bottom tips all line up. 
Next you are going to accordian-style fold the doilies. Starting on the left, fold over about 3/4" of the largest heart. You will need to hold the other 2 sizes in place until the get folded in. You will want to make sure that the folds are straight, meaning if you were to look directly at the hearts, the fold marks would be straight up and down, not at an angle.  Repeat this process 6 times. Meaning you will need 6 sets of hearts to make the decoration. Next stack the hearts on top of eachother, as shown below, lining up the bottom of bottom of the doilies. 
Using a stapler, staple the bottom of the doilies. 
Fan it out a little and then you are going to staple the edges of the large hearts together as shown below: 
Repeat until all of the large hearts are connected. Repeat with the medium sized hearts. 
I didn't end up stapling the smallest sized hearts, I just fanned them out. I cut out a heart from one of the doilies and glued it to the middle and taped a piece of string on the back to hang from our window. 
Happy Valentine making! 

p.s. Thank you for all your sweet emails regarding the last post here. I'm hanging in there and owe you some return messages which I will do soon. Happy weekend! 

XOXO

Happy 2013! I am so happy to be popping in to say hello. I've really missed ye olde blog. I'm going to attempt a recap to tell you all about our year (brace yourself.)
2012 was a big year of change for us. I don't think that I've ever mentioned it here before, but for the last 5 years that we lived in LA we managed 2 separate apartment buildings. Early last year we had to go to court (I think there was brief mention of that here) to evict someone. Without going into all the details and court information the eviction basically turned ugly and the crackhead who lived directly above us started threatning our lives and more specifically the lives of our children. There were threats  that he was watching us, that he knew when we were coming and going, etc.,. Police reports were filed, calls to Henry's school were made with strict instruction that we were the only ones allowed to pick him up. We never mentioned any of this of course to the children but somehow they figured it out and became fearful that something would happen to them. We were burnt out of managing and living in a 2 bedroom, 1000 sq ft apartment with 3 children. We were at major odds with our management company and ready to walk away from it all. In the middle of all this, I took a trip out to Boston for my birthday and for a long weekend spent with girlfriends. I really, really missed our life here and was ready for a yard, for seasons, for a complete 360 from the overwhelmingly stressful life we'd been living. The day after I came home from Boston, we had our final court appearance. It was all so exhausting for so many reasons. In late April/early May when our lives were threatened we decided that we were done with it all and so we quit on the spot. With no plan.
Henry really wanted to stay for the last day of school and I wanted that for him, too. So the day after school ended, I loaded up the children and we drove to Utah while we tried to figure it all out. Chris moved all of our belongings into a storage unit in the valley, finished up work and met us in Utah a week or so later. Utah was actually great. We stayed with my amazing brother and the kids were in heaven. It was so nice to not have the weight of managing a 30-unit apartment building on our shoulders anymore (or the crazy lunatic who was after us either). Some friends of ours in Boston were moving to Belgium for 6 weeks over the Summer and it was decided that we would come out and house-sit for them. So we started our cross-country road trip. 
Chris and I had driven cross country twice before (but never with 3 kids!) So we took our time and soaked up every minute of it. It was somewhere between New York City and Boston that I started to have an internal freak-out. What on earth were were doing?? Did we really just throw everything we own into a storage unit and drive across the country? Ugh….what??
(George Washington Bridge, NYC) 
I'm one for risks and adventure. Why not, right? I figured we had a 50% chance of things going our way or failing miserably and I'm always one for feeling hopeful. We made it to Boston around midnight – went straight to bed and then took the children to see this city we fell in love with 12 years earlier. Henry was born here and we moved to LA when he was about 5 weeks old. It was fun to show him the hospital he was born in and the apartment we brought him home to. I couldn't believe that we were actually here. We rented a home about an hour west of Boston on 4 acres in the country (that was still less than a 2 bed apt in LA!). 
I flew home a week or two later with Henry to attend my sisters wedding (Gorgeous, gorgeous, bride!) and then Henry and Kate started school. The new school was really hard on Henry. Lot's of tears, lots of "when will I make a friend?" which was so hard on me. A few weeks in, friends were made and we started to try to settle in (with none of our belongings 🙂 The next few months were extremely difficult. When that 50% chance of things working out doesn't fall in your favor, life can become really hard. I launched my kickstarter project in September and am still amazed that it was even funded. The show of support for me meant more than the money that was rasied to fund this dream of mine. I was chest deep in a major depression since August and just could not pull myself out of it. I wasn't doing any of the things that I used to love doing. The days were long and just too much for me to bear. I couldn't wait for each day to be over. I have felt total desperation these last 5 months and cried more tears than I want to admit. 
Our sweet little Charlie turned 3 in November and was able to start pre-school 2 days later. After 4 days in school, his teacher approached me because she was 'very concerned' about Charlie. The speech and developmental therapies he'd be receiving while at school were not going to be enough and she didn't feel like her class could offer him what he needed. She's  pushing for an official diagnosis for him. There's talk of autism, aspergers, lots of paperwork for me to fill out about his behaviors and tendancies. Dr's appt's, referrals, trying to get a diagnosis so we can move him into a classroom where he has a one-on-one teacher where he can get the help and therapies he needs. We are in the throws of it all now. It's exhausting. Isn't he a cutie pie? I love him so much. We are hopeful to have some answers in the next few weeks and will know what roads to take to best help our darling Charlie. Christmas was very low key- which is what we wanted. We made aebleskivers which is our Christmas morning tradtion. Henry, who failed his hearing test at school in September (and who has failed for a few years now) finally got a proper diagnosis on his condition and went in for surgery the day after Christmas. He's extremely hard of hearing in his right ear and so they removed his adenoids and put tubes in both ears. They are watching his eardrum to see if it's doing what they need it to do. If not, he will need to go back in and have reconstructive surgery on his eardrum. I feel so grateful to be close to Mass Eye and Ear Hospital. What a blessing to finally get this taken care of for him. My heart is full.  
He was a good patient. I think iPads in pre-op are pretty genius! I even got to wear 'pajamas' too!

That was pretty epic and exhausting to re-tell. I'm kind of a mess if you couldn't tell. It's taking everything in me to take care of these boys of mine right now. I am SO BEHIND on Kickstarter. I seriously wake up in the middle of the night with panic attacks because the rewards have not been sent out yet. I know you understand but know that it weighs heavily on me. I think we are about to round a corner here and I'll be ready soon. 

I'm still not 100%. I just cannot pull myself out of this. I miss the old me. I miss all the things I used to love doing. I need to start doing more of them. It will be my 2013 resolution. Bear with me as I try to get back to normal. You guys are the best. 

Wishing you a happy & healthy 2013! 

XOXO

It's been weeks, at least, since I've sat down at the computer (long story). I had good intentions of catching you up on what we are up to, but we are all sick here and I've just spent over an hour combing out the dreads in Kate's hair (which had not been combed in about 4 days).  I'm ready for bed. Yawn. 

I've been meaning to give you the heads up on an awesome Kickstarter project by our good friend Nathaniel Hansen that is ending SOON! Nathaniel has been very instrumental in getting my own kickstarter project off the ground and he'll be very involved in the upcoming episodes. He's a pretty amazing guy all around. Below is a brief description of the project and how you can donate to support this great film. 

The small town of La’ie, on Oahu’s north shore, covers just 2.1 square miles. This rural community is home to the most visited tourist attraction in Hawaii, a top rated university, a spiritual center for a world-wide church, and numerous minority cultures. But as these diverse groups struggle to have their stories and interests represented, the aging descendants of those Hawaiian’s who first inhabited La’ie’s shores, are fading. In a documentary portrait of this unique place, these elders, or Kūpuna, relate the experiences of their lives and their memories of Oahu's "city of refuge" as their ancestors have done for millennia.

Be back soon (I sort of, like, really miss you guys. xo) 

<———is happening over there. Christmas garlands, ornaments, etc., xo———-

I woke up at 3:30 this morning and couldn't fall back to sleep. I was thinking about how I needed to do a Kickstarter update and let people know where things were at. I was wondering how all 3 children made it into our bed last night and how it was no wonder I was awake-I was running out of bed real estate. I was debating on making some cupcakes for Charlie to take to his first day of pre-school today in celebration of his birthday last Sunday. So at 5:00 I decided to just get up. There's something to be said for getting up early while everyone else is still fast asleep (don't be fooled- this will probably never happen again.) So I came down, turned on the kettle, made myself some chamomile honey herbal tea and sat down at the computer. Minutes later I heard the sound of little footsteps above me. Kate came down, asked for some hot chocolate and a clementine. I threw a few more logs onto the fire, got her settled under a blanket and put on Charlie & Lola for her. And here I am. 

I was thinking that it's been way too long since I've been here in this space and how much I have missed it. Did I really skip over Halloween? These last few months have been a blur and now it's almost December. Wasn't it just August?? Thanksgiving was so good. We had great friends over and I ate the most scrumptious candied ginger & cranberry sauce that I have ever had. Still thinking about it. The flurry of the holidays are upon us. What a wonderful time of year. Chris was able to get our things out of our storage unit in Los Angeles and arrived home with them a week ago, driving non-stop from SLC to MA in less than 2 days (thanks for co-piloting, Nathaniel!) We've been busy unpacking and feeling so grateful to be reunited with our things. I got a  little tear when I laid eyes on my kitchenaid. Seriously. We only brought what fit into our minivan so it's been a bit bleak these past 5 months. Charlie will be starting pre-school today which is something I have anxiously waited for these last few months. He will finally be able to get the therapies he needs (speech, occupational, developmental) while at school. He has made a lot of progress since we left LA 5 months ago but there is still much needed to do and we are feeling hopeful. 
I participated in my first ever craft fair (kind of nerve wracking!) and have a some holiday goodies left that I will put up in my etsy shop today for anyone who might be interested. Wool felt holly & ivy 6' garlands, wool christmas trees & ornaments. 

It's 6:30 now. All 3 children are up and I think I've still got some time to get some cupcakes into the oven for Charlie. See you soon! xoxo

This guy's running.

*This sign may or may not have been pulled from the rural roads of southern New Hampshire. You know who you are.

Hi there! Long time no chat! Things have been very busy here which I will catch you up on soon, but I wanted to let you know about an awesome wet felting workshop that the talented and amazing Nicole & Emily are running again this year (it's been hugely successful in years past.) It's a 10-day online workshop that starts TOMORROW!

Here's a description of the course: 

WORKSHOP DETAILS:

This is a fantastical, fun introduction to felting! During the course you will be shown the nitty-gritty of what turns fluffy piles of wool into magical felted goods.

With that knowledge you will be guided to make several variations of felt for our projects:round felt beads, a layered felt flower, a flat felt scarfette and a dimensional felt mobile-phone pouch, as well as a couple of fun bonus projects.

Armed with your new skills you will be ready to felt your little hearts out (warning: felting is higly addictive!) and fall in love with this delicious artform. Even if you have felted before, this workshop is definitley going to have you saying "AH-HA!"

If you are looking to make homemade gifts this year for the holidays you really can make some amazing gifts out of felt. I'm signing up to take the course (wet felting is something I know nothing about and am excited to learn!) Hope to see you there! XO